Ms Joanne Irwin:

The TUI welcomes the opportunity to address the joint committee on the issue of continuous assessment for State examinations. Assessment in schools takes three forms: formative, which takes place in schools every day, for example, in the marking of homework, copies, etc; the summative assessment, which is used to measure the breadth and depth of knowledge acquired, for example, in the State examinations at the end of the year; and diagnostic testing to measure the capacity of a student to carry out tasks, for example, aptitude or special needs testing. Each of these forms of assessment takes place frequently in schools. By its nature, formative assessment is continuous.

It should be noted that in the State examinations additional forms of assessment, as Ms Leydon said, take place in many subjects in the leaving certificate examinations. They are embedded in the new revised junior cycle programme. For example, oral and practical tests take place in many language and practical subjects. Of the 32 curricular subjects in the leaving certificate programme, 17 have a mixture of assessment components, between the terminal examination and the practicals, the orals, the aurals and course work. All of the recently revised junior cycle subject specifications have a second assessment component which is assessed by the State Examinations Commission. They enable students to demonstrate wider abilities than could be shown in a written examination alone.

We are not fully through that procedure yet and all the subjects are not on stream but as that happens, parents and students will see that a lot more.

The suggestion is sometimes made that continuous assessment reduces student stress. However, the Teachers Union of Ireland, TUI, believes that there is a real risk that continuous assessment would simply lead to students experiencing continuous stress with no breaks between assessments. Furthermore, it should be noted that an excess of assessments can infringe on time to learn and explore topics of interest.

There are potentially significant risks arising from the use of continuous assessment in the State examinations. These include the reputational risk to the existing, widely respected system, to which Ms Leydon has referred, risk to student contact time and the risk of over-assessment.

It is also worth noting that the Department for Education in England has recently moved away from continuous assessment for the purposes of the lower secondary education, the general certificate of secondary education, GCSE. This move was largely motivated by fears about a lack of rigour in the assessments and also because continuous assessment can cause difficulties if students move school during the junior cycle and it also causes difficulty for adult learners who return to do the junior cycle or the leaving certificate on a part-time basis.

Teachers already operate a system that is superior, we believe, than continuous assessment and that is formative assessment. Formative assessment is where students are given feedback on a daily basis so they can learn from that as opposed to continuous assessment where they hand up a piece of work and they do not get feedback on that piece of work. It is also embedded in the new junior cycle, as I have said.

The structure and the content of courses designed by the National Council for Curriculum and Assessment, NCCA, typically take full account of the variety of assessment modes that are available and of the need to equip students for a world that is ever-changing.

The TUI asks the committee to note that any ill-advised introduction of a continuous assessment could undermine public trust in both the junior cycle, which we are currently just halfway through and the leaving certificate. This would have adverse implications on the approximately.

In conclusion, TUI believes that any move towards continuous assessment system could negatively affect the quality and the reputation of the Irish public education system.